


Another Life

by Sheffield



Series: Another Life [1]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-21
Updated: 2011-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:30:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield





	Another Life

I was a dead man.

I had gone in without a wire - too dangerous - and my backup was keeping a loose perimeter of about three blocks. The Man's organisation was new, but they already seemed to have resources we couldn't counter, maybe even an eye inside police headquarters somehow. It had been worth the risk, I'd decided. But the stakes were high, and I'd lost.

So now I sat counting the pretty stars, feeling the blood run down my face, and pulled half-heartedly at the chains on my wrists and the straps on my ankles. I wondered whether the Man would kill me himself or get one of the others to do it.

I was tied to a chair in an empty office with dust on the floor and hardboard over the windows and there was nothing in the room except me, the chair, and an old wooden tea-chest. Oh, and the two plug-uglies with the guns, of course. I looked them over. Nope, not faces I recognised. New players. Not major players but still, worth memorising just in case I ever got out of here alive. Knuckles and No-neck, I dubbed them, labelling the faces neatly. Sometimes an eidetic memory comes in handy. If I lived so long.

I wondered what we were waiting for. I was happy to wait quite a lot longer, because I didn't think whatever it was would be something I'd want. I wondered what had happened to Blair.

The blood ran down my face some more and I realised I was squinting when I tried to i.d. Knuckles and No-neck, so I figured someone had hit me over the head with something. Yep, that explained a lot. Of course now that I identified one pain, all the other pains started jumping up and down and reminding me of their existence in the hope I would i.d. them too. Yeah, yeah, I thought tiredly. I'll sort you guys out later.

And then the door opened and He came.

He came in like a hurricane, barrelled straight over and knocked me back with a right hook that would have made any boxing promoter salivate. I landed on my back, chair and all, and shut my eyes.

Which made no difference to the pretty stars.

He picked me up, or picked up the chair, which was the same thing. And then - and this was the weird thing - he started to sniff me. Seriously. Put his face right up to mine, and then into my neck and my armpits and... snuffled. Like a dog taking a scent. I was seriously weirded out, I can tell you. I mean, hit me, kill me, talk to me, whatever. But stick your nose in my pits? Seriously weird.

"Good." He straightened up and looked at me, apparently satisfied. "Maybe we can talk a little before I kill you. OK."

The OK was addressed to Knuckles, not to me. Knuckles produced a pry bar and jimmied the lid off the tea chest. He looked down into it, and then rolled it over onto its side which let me take a look inside.

Inside, was Blair, the kid I'd been talking to when it all went to hell. He was wide awake but bound hand and foot and gagged with a scarf. The Man rolled him out of the crate and hauled him to his feet, and then I'll be damned if he didn't start to sniff him all over too. Kid rolled his eyes and the Man bitch-slapped him dispassionately, and then carried on checking him out, sniffing him over even more thoroughly than he had me.

"OK, that's cool." He nodded to No-neck who moved over and started to untie the kid, while the Man looked steadily at me. When he was untied, Blair went straight over to the Man, slightly behind him and to the right, and then went down on his knees, hands behind his back, eyes cast down. The Man's hand went automatically to the top of his head, like you'd automatically pet a dog or something. Weirder and weirder. If I didn't get a bullet in the next five minutes, the curiosity was going to do it instead.

"You're a cop, right?"

I thought about trying to deny it. Simon and the others would be tearing the place apart looking for me, but they wouldn't have much to go on. What would buy me more time, letting him beat it out of me, or trying to charm him into stopping for a chat?

I gave him my best melting smile. I had assumed, when I targeted him, that Blair was nothing more than his piece of ass but that wasn't it at all: there was something else going on here, something much much weirder than that. But that still didn't mean he didn't walk the other side and, hell, they'd picked me for this job because they thought I might catch his eye...

"You don't really expect me to answer that?" I grinned.

He grinned back. He didn't walk that way. But I was still alive.

"No, I suppose not. But you are, and I know it, and you know I know it. So why were you sniffing around my boy here?"

Blair flashed me a quick glance under his lashes; so quick it was almost subliminal. There was no way He could have seen it, but somehow he did. He dragged Blair to his feet, moved him a few feet away from me, started lecturing him in a low voice, so I couldn't hear what he was saying. Blair kept his eyes on the Man's face, the whole time. Obedience training. You see it in a lot of the street whores. You try and talk to them on their own and they either will or they won't, you know? Depends on their mood, and whether they know you're Cop, and how strung out they are, and why you're there talking to them in the first place. But try and talk to them in front of their pimp and they keep their eyes on the pimp the whole time, like a dog when it's master's got a bone. I knew, but didn't want to know, how the pimps trained them up like that. It was one of the reasons I stayed a cop.

And then the tone changed. Whatever the Man was saying to Blair, Blair was saying something back, something to the Man. He put his hand on the Man's arm and the Man smiled at him, infinitely tender. I wondered what the hell was going on. The Man had come from nowhere about five years ago. He just about ran the numbers, drugs and hookers in half of Cascade and his territory was expanding day by day. In a year he'd either be dead or he'd be The Man over the whole city. No-one thought the mob, the tongs or the gangs were going to let him in without a fight, but then no-one had thought the Prospectors were going to take over their neighbourhood and five others back when they started.

"Detective Rafe," he said calmly, coming back over to me, Blair settling once more at his feet. "I know Simon sent you in to find out what I'm doing. I don't object; it's his job to know. But you crossed a line. Blair belongs to me. Go back to Simon and tell him that. Tell him that the next cop who stops Blair, talks to him, looks at him from across the street even, is a dead man, and so is the man who sends him. You think you can remember that, detective?"

He had a pleasant, even voice. He might have been discussing the weather. But I was more scared than I've ever been in my life. He meant every word. He had decided whether I was going to live or die and, OK, it was good news - but there was nothing I could do about it whatever he decided.

I needed a drink.

Hell, I needed the bathroom.

They turned to go, the Man, the plug-uglies, Blair. But I couldn't let it go, not like that.

"You OK with that, Blair?"

Blair looked at the Man, not at me. He nodded, slightly, giving Blair permission to speak.

"I'm where I'm supposed to be," Blair said softly, and then the plug-uglies led him away. The Man stayed.

"Make sure Simon knows. You've used up your nine lives, Detective Rafe. Don't ever speak to Blair again - you follow? He's off limits. Completely."

"Yeah," I said ruefully. If they were really going to leave me there, Simon would probably kill me anyway. I had nothing; no handle on what was going on with these two, no information about what was going on. Hell, I still didn't even know the Man's name.

"You'll be OK, detective. As soon as I've taken Blair home I'll have someone call Simon and get you out of here. Give him my complements and tell him the first one is free; don't find out what would happen to the second."

He saw something in the look on my face and grinned again. Only this time it changed his whole face, made him look... human. Someone I could have got to know, got to like even, in another world, another life. "What's the matter," he said, "Simon going to be pissed with you?"

"You have no idea," I smiled back. "Hell, I haven't come up so empty since I was a rookie. Your people are strong on security - I couldn't even get to know your name."

"That's good to hear," he said calmly, walking towards the door. "It's Ellison."

And he shut the door behind him.


End file.
